The Story Teller of the Desert—"Backsheesh!" / or, Life and Adventures in the Orient

by Thomas Wallace Knox

Bethlehem has some celebrity for the beauty of its women, and in looking over that congregation I think I saw more pretty faces than I had seen elsewhere in all Syria. In the vestibule, there were two confessionals, and at each of them there was a line of young women and girls, waiting for their opportunities, as a crowd waits at a post-office, or the ticket-box of a theatre. To judge by the attendance at the confessional, I should suspect that these young misses were not the models of all that is good in the world.

The church was blazing with candles, and the Christmas decorations were pretty, but there was nothing unusual in this part of the service. What we had come to see was the procession to the Grotto of the Nativity, and we were anxious to know when this was to come off.

The heat of the candles and the bad atmosphere rendered the church quite uncomfortable, and so we wandered off into the Greek portion, where there was no service and only a few people. Turkish soldiers were standing around, ready to suppress any tumult, and other soldiers were within call.

We loitered around here for awhile, and then descended to the grotto, which was hot and full of foul air, like the church. Between the church, the grotto, and the Greek church and the corridors of the Armenian Convent, we whiled away the time until two o’clock in the morning, when we descended the stairs to take seats on a stone bench in front of the Grotto of the Manger and not more than ten feet from the sacred silver star.

Here we sat nearly an hour, watching occasional pilgrims, descending the stairway and kissing the shrine, and the preparations for the grand procession. There are two stairways, one belonging to the Latins, and the other to the Greeks and Armenians. The latter staircase was most of the time crowded by Greek and Armenian monks, but they were not allowed to descend into the grotto, except on one occasion, when a Greek priest, clad in rich robes, carried a censer in front of the shrine and repeated a prayer. I fancy that he did it less out of reverential feeling than to show the Latins that he had a right to perform service there.

A long service was read in the Grotto of the Manger, called also the Grotto of Adoration, and finally the floor was cleared, and a heavy carpet was spread in front of the shrine. When the carpet was brought, the grotto was filled with people, who were pushed back with considerable rudeness, all except the strangers—a dozen or more, including ourselves. These were all treated with great respect, and allowed the best places for witnessing the ceremonies.

All this time the soldiers stood there with fixed bayonets, and once in the progress of the service the guard was changed, with a good deal of the clang of arms, that had a strange sound at such a time and place.

Finally, when it was near three o’clock, we heard the sound of a chant proceeding from the church, and coming nearer and nearer. Soon the sound reached the head of the Latin stairway, and craning our heads around, we saw the front of the procession. Now it descended, and slowly and slowly it came into view.

Eight boys carrying candles, and robed in the white vestments, familiar to those who attend the Catholic service, led the way, and behind them were priests and monks, to the number of twenty or more, all richly dressed in the appropriate robes.

I regret to be unable to give the ecclesiastical rank of all the personages in the procession, and can only say that they included all the dignitaries of the Latin church in this part of Syria, and I was told that two persons, high in office, had been sent from Rome, to be present on this occasion.